Apalachee Audubon: Help us Table at the Monarch Butterfly Festival

Apalachee Audubon will be tabling at this event and we need a few volunteers to help represent the Chapter. No expertise required! We’ll have materials on hand to distribute to interested people. And you can spend the rest of the time enjoying the festival! Cooler weather brings relief to humans and transport winds for migrating birds and butterflies. The large orange and black Monarch butterflies take advantage of these winds to head south to the Gulf coast and St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge on their migration to Mexico. The Refuge will host its Monarch Festival on Saturday November 7 from 10 am - 2 pm to showcase this amazing migration. Not only will visitors to the festival on Saturday will be able to able to witness the tagging of these delicate butterflies at the St. Marks Lighthouse, but they can enjoy exhibits and demonstrations, learn about landscaping for butterflies and other pollinators, plus enjoy family-friendly interactive games, crafts, music, and food near the visitor center, plus the Nature Store will also be open from 10 am -5pm, so you can get all your monarch and nature gifts there. Unlike other animal migrations, each monarch butterfly is on its own. There is no parent to follow. Its annual journey is a complex, inherited behavior pattern, not a learned process. Migrating monarchs are usually those who hatch out in late summer. Monarchs have a 4-inch wingspan and weigh 1 gram (1/5 the weight of a penny). They travel with cold fronts, often at speeds of 10 - 30 mph, covering 80 miles a day. They may fly at 3,000 feet and higher and will "fall out" on the goldenrod and saltbush, blooming along the coast and feed hungrily for their long trip.